Anything For Love
by MizJoely
Summary: Molly Hooper is desperate to save the life of the man she loves. Desperate enough to turn to a 21st century war criminal-turned-reluctant Starfleet asset. But what price will Khan extract from her for his help? How far is she willing to go - and what consequences will her actions have on her relationship with Sherlock if and when Khan's blood returns him from the brink of death?
1. The Brain Of The Beast

_Inspired by a tumblr post featuring lovely art by flavialikestodraw paired with this anon drabble: "Molly belittled herself to promise him to do anything, just to have a drop of his blood. A single bead of his precious vital fluid could save Sherlock, and she would give Khan everything, just to see the man she loved healthy again. 'Everything, Ms. Hooper? I neither need, nor I want, everything.' His cruel smile became feral. 'I want you.'"_

_I've had this sitting on my computer for ages and now I'm posting it since I have no current Khanolly WiPs. Warning for dubcon in later chapters. Be aware that Khan is NOT a cuddly kitten in this fic. Betaed by the wonderful allthebellsinvenice._

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He knew the instant his true identity had been discovered, but said nothing to Marcus or any of his Section 31 lackeys, certainly not to the ones assigned to follow him whenever he left the building where he spent most of his time designing ever-more-grandiose weapons for the admiral. It was their supposedly impregnable computer security that had been breached, after all; let them deal with it. Or not; as time passed and Marcus showed no signs of panic or rage, Khan realised that he and his sub rosa Starfleet organization were either complacent or incompetent or both in their reliance on electronic security to keep their dirty little secrets.

Of which he, Khan Noonian Singh, was most certainly their dirtiest. A late 21st century crew of Augments discovered in deep space, smuggled back to Earth and being held hostage against their leader's coerced cooperation in clandestine weapon's design…oh yes, he was certainly the dirtiest of the Section's secrets.

And now he'd been found out, but by whom? To what purpose? There was no leaked story to the press or Starfleet Command or any governmental body; Marcus wasn't being blackmailed or threatened, Khan himself – either under his true name or the pseudonym he'd been forced to assume, John Harrison – hadn't been contacted. Nor was he under surveillance other than the usual Section 31 fools. It was an intriguing puzzle, something to occupy his mind with when not busy designing weapons of mass destruction for the man he hated more than anything in the world.

Two days after he noted the skillful pilfering of his identity from Section 31's most heavily encrypted classified files, he had his answer, in the form of scruffy, bearded young hoodlum – or as close to a hoodlum as Earth could manage these pacified, overly-civilized days. "The Missus said you're the one can help her," he said, speaking without preamble as he sidled up to Khan in the middle of the busy market center where he usually ate his midday meal.

Khan continued to calmly chew and swallow his sandwich, then replied in the same quiet tones. "Help her with what?"

His answer came in the form of a data chip pressed into his free hand. His fingers curled around it automatically, and when he looked up for an explanation the other man was gone, vanished into the crowds. Khan's lips curled in a reluctant, appreciative smile; it wasn't every day his superior eyesight and reflexes could be outmaneuvered by a normal human.

The smile vanished as he turned his attention to the data chip, turning it over and over between his fingers as if a simple visual and tactile examination might help him understand what information had just been conveyed to him. None of his Section 31 tails had a clear line of sight on him at the moment, so he caused the thumb-sized wafer to vanish into the top of his boot while he finished eating, then rose and continued with his usual routine – a stroll around the marketplace, a small purchase or two from his preferred food and drink vendors, then a return to his work for his nemesis.

They left him to his own devices once he was inside his London flat, confident that their electronic spies would alert them should he attempt to escape their view or do anything out of the ordinary. They had no idea the ways he'd managed to circumvent them all, how the data they viewed was all manufactured, a lie carefully created and maintained to cover the true activities he generally busied himself with in the evenings.

As soon as he entered the flat, his personal security protocols started up, activated by his DNA. He removed his uniform and boots, leaving the data chip where it was until he'd showered and eaten a small meal. Then he ordered the computer to turn on a programme of classical music, the signal for his security system to start feeding his watchers – active or passive – the false information showing him going about his usual, very boring routine. Once he was satisfied that all was safe, he retrieved the chip and inserted it into his heavily encrypted data reader. If there was a virus or tracer on the chip he was confident of his ability to root it out before anyone received or destroyed so much as a single byte of information from his computer.

It was clean, and when he opened it up to look at the files, the first thing he saw was his own image staring back at him. However, he'd never worn his hair that long, a mass of curls falling across his forehead, although every other detail, down to the prominent freckle on the front of his neck, was accurate – digital manipulation of some kind? He frowned as he scanned the image, both visually and with a program he'd written to analyse such images. No. Not manipulated. He was staring at not himself then, but a doppelganger of some sort – a clone, possibly, although if the Federation had the technology to clone someone to this exacting degree he would know about it. The only secret Marcus had been able to keep from him was the location of his seventy-two fellow Augments, and he was close to solving that particular riddle, the only one that truly mattered to him.

First, however, he had this little mystery to unravel. As he scanned through the files, he found himself more and more impressed with the thoroughness of whoever had put the information he was viewing together; not only was there a complete profile of his life and supposedly classified work for Section 31, there was an entire subdirectory dealing with his true identity. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to let him know that they were aware not only of who he was now, but who he was no longer allowed to be.

He supposed he should have felt anger at this violation of his privacy, but nearly a year under Admiral Marcus' thumb had numbed him to such; all he felt was curiosity and admiration, tempered with a growing impatience to discover who was behind this, and what they wanted of him.

Instead of discovering that, as soon as he'd closed the files detailing his personal life, past and present, another file revealed itself, containing the last thing he'd ever expected to see: evidence that not only had his supposedly eradicated bloodline continued, but that there remained on Earth one last descendent of his, a many-times-removed great-grandson.

With mounting interest he read about one William Sherlock Scott Holmes, private consultant to local law enforcement here in London and around the globe, with an impressive case closure rate if the attached resume were to be believed. Either this was an elaborately detailed hoax, or else he truly was the antecedent of this man and his two elder brothers, now deceased, as were their parents.

The only living relative listed, in fact, was his wife, one Molly Elizabeth Hooper-Holmes.

Khan brought up her image, and his breath caught. Not only was his descendent an exact duplicate of himself, but the man's wife bore the features of Khan's own beloved, Marla, who slept on with the rest of his crew. His family.

And now there was another…possibly. He refused to allow himself to feel any sort of emotion, to react to the chance that his bloodline lived on. That one of his former paramours had actually given birth to a child of his without him – or any of his many enemies – knowing about it.

Facts. Data. He needed more of both, from independent sources. He fed the information on the married couple into a computer that Starfleet would be very interested to know he had in his possession, instructing it to verify the information contained on the data chip; if this 'Sherlock Holmes', as he apparently preferred to be called, was indeed his descendent…and Molly, presumably, a descendent of Marla's? Well. He refused to speculate ahead of the facts, but there were several fascinating scenarios he could work out in his mind if what he was seeing turned out to be true.

While he waited, he had a second computer search for a matching likeness for the man who had slipped him the data chip in the first place, using his perfect recall to provide a precise, detailed description. Afterwards he rescanned the data contained on the chip carefully, even testing it for DNA other than his own. However, the man had been clever; he'd been wearing some sort of barrier so that no so much as a single skin cell or partial fingerprint had been left behind.

Based on the biographies of Holmes and Hooper (she looked so much like Marla, her hair a shade darker, closer to chestnut than red; her eyes brown instead of blue, but the same slight build, the same expression of quiet resolve on her face that he'd seen so many times before their exile), he tentatively concluded that the man – ah, there he was, one William James Wiggins of London – was the one who'd extracted his secured files from under Section 31's collective noses. Yes. Khan steepled his fingers beneath his chin and relaxed in his chair, resting his elbows on its black leather-covered arms as he studied Wiggins' bio. A computer programmer of some renown in certain criminal circles, until being taken under the wing of Sherlock Holmes and being put to work on the other side of the law.

He barely skimmed the information pertaining to Holmes' known associates – a former Starfleet medical doctor, a Detective Inspector with Scotland Yard, an assortment of uninteresting police officers and forensics specialists – focusing instead on his family history. Father an historian who'd written an impressive array of scholarly works pertaining to the Eugenics War. Mother a Starfleet Intelligence officer. Both deceased, as already noted, natural causes. Eldest brother Robert Mycroft Matthew Holmes, holder of some supposedly 'minor' position in Earth's global government; some digging would be required if necessary to confirm Khan's suspicions that the man's actual position was quite a bit more important. Never married, no children. His death was by far the most intriguing fact; assassination, assailant currently living out a life imprisonment on the New Zealand penal colony, one Sebastian Moran…boring. Second brother, David Sherrinford Andrew Holmes, university professor and archaeologist, three ex-wives and one ex-husband, no children, also deceased, hit by a runaway lorry. Tragic. Moving on.

Molly Hooper was not so bereft of living relatives, but none of them closer than a cousin who was an environmental engineer on Mars and a great-aunt and uncle who had retired to the Sussex colony to study bees. Boring, boring, not worth investigating.

Another program was started, this one researching the genetic backgrounds of his current prey, searching for further proof that there was a real, genetic connection between them. He also added another query, scanning all documents produced by members of the Holmes family as far back as could be traced, searching for signs of an acknowledged connection to Khan, although he doubted very much he'd find any such thing.

His lip curled as he recalled some of the more lurid so-called 'biographies' of him and the other Augments who had sought to bestow order on a world fallen sadly into chaos; none of them had been remotely favorable to his kind. Even their creators had been condemned as madmen and fanatics for daring to attempt to modify humankind into something more worthy of the planet that had birthed them.

He held mixed feelings toward history for having saved no images of any of the Augments, not even for purposes of law enforcement when they were branded war criminals and hounded from Earth. On the one hand, it made it that much easier for the cursed admiral to hide him plain sight; on the other hand, he had no stored images of his crew and those who had died three hundred years earlier. No physical reminder of what they looked like, only his memories. His memory was eidetic, yes, but it wasn't the same as being able to call up his sweet Marla's likeness on the computer any time he wanted, or to see Joachim's solid, beloved features gazing back at him on a vid feed.

At least, he mused, now he could call up images of this Molly Hooper-Holmes. With but a few alterations, she could easily be transformed into the face he most longed to see, to touch, to kiss…

"Pfaugh!" he said, annoyed at how easily he'd allowed himself to fall prey to sentiment. It was a weakness, a chemical defect found on the losing side. Many seemed to believe that this oft-repeated credo of his meant that he was incapable of feeling love, that he held no one close to his heart, when nothing could be further from the truth. Love wasn't a soft emotion; far from it. Wars were started over love, people killed and died for love. No, it was the romantic weakening of that emotion into sentiment that he despised, that softened people's brains and destroyed their ability to reason, to function, to make the difficult decisions that sometimes needed to be made.

Although he was reluctant to admit it, even to himself, Admiral Marcus was a man of like thinking when it came to love. He loved his daughter, he loved his planet and his Federation, but he was ruthless with that love. He would do anything to protect that which he held dear.

Just as Khan would. A pity he hadn't been able to seduce Carol Marcus at some point, but she was too carefully guarded; Marcus had made certain that the two never crossed paths, even though she worked for her father and was frequently on-site. He'd made sure to keep her well segregated from 'John Harrison' and his top secret projects…or rather, Khan thought with a cold smile, he believed he had. The admiral was in for an unpleasant awakening one of these days, when he discovered what his daughter had been up to behind his back.

That, however, wasn't any concern of his. The computer running the background checks on Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper gave a soft 'ping', and he spent several minutes confirming that the information in the Federation Database contained the same information he'd received on disk. He checked his secondary program, confirmed that the original data hadn't been tampered with or recently inserted in order to give credence to false data meant to mislead him, and read some very enlightening medical reports that cleared up the fundamental mystery as to why he'd been contacted in the first place.

Before he could do more than start to make mental correlations, the results of the genetic inquiry appeared on-screen, bringing a tingle of anticipation to his flesh and stretching his lips in a satisfied smile.

Although Dr. Molly Hooper, Chief Pathologist at St. Bart's Hospital here in London, was no genetic match for his sweet, sleeping Marla, Sherlock Holmes was, indeed, his descendent. Lineal, from his direct line, not collateral. Not from his younger, unaugmented sister whose fate he'd never discovered; not from his elder brother who had died screaming in battle with the North American Bloc soldiers that had stormed the family compound the night Khan and the others had been forced to flee Earth, to seek refuge far from the world that had turned against them. To hope to find a better life elsewhere.

Such a futile hope it had turned out to be, now that they found themselves back where they started. Once again being used as tools rather than being allowed to take their rightful place…

With a curse Khan flung himself out of his chair; discovering that he had an actual blood relative was affecting his thinking, turning him maudlin and morose, neither of which emotion would do him any good. He stopped, stood with the preternatural stillness that all his people could so easily command, shut his eyes, and breathed deeply, in and out, until he felt the calmness he sought finally settle over his mind.

Snapping his eyes open, he returned to his chair and calmly, methodically began reviewing the information contained on the data chip, reanalyzing it based on the confirmation he'd received that he was, indeed, looking at a likeness of his only living descendent.

The discreet chime of his personal communicator interrupted his analysis, and he narrowed his eyes in annoyance, expecting it to be Admiral Marcus or one of his lackeys demanding his presence at the research facility. Such had happened far too many times in the past, but he never failed to respond, to give the appearance of complete cooperation as he bided his time for the moment of triumph he was certain to face one day.

Soon.

Very, very soon.

Putting a neutral expression on his face, he flipped open the communicator sat on the corner of his desk, confident that the perception filter he'd designed was working to cover the sight of anything he wasn't supposed to have in his possession, and to mask any noises that such contraband equipment might make. The face that greeted him, however, wasn't one he'd been anticipating, although in retrospect it made perfect sense.

Molly Hooper.


	2. Opening Negotiations

_A/N: Thanks to everyone for reading, following and reviewing! Things are starting to heat up in this chapter, and will come to a boil in the next. Stay tuned!_

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"Hello, I suppose you know who I am," the quiet voice said, causing his breath to hitch in his throat at the achingly familiar tones. Molly Hooper might not be Marla's blood relative, but their coincidental similarities were frighteningly eerie. Eerie enough for his lightning-fast mind to consider the possibility that she'd been engineered to deliberately resemble his consort…but no. As he'd already ascertained, no images of Marla had been available for anyone to study, to try and use against him. Even the secret Section 31 databases contained no such information.

He narrowed his eyes as he recognised her surroundings; she was here, actually across the street from his place of residence! He almost laughed at her audacity; showing up at his home like this, risking not only being caught and interrogated by the Section, but putting herself at his putative mercy…there was much to admire about this woman, more than a mere coincidental similarity to the woman he loved. She'd already piqued his interest; now, he could honestly admit to being fascinated by her.

Once the mechanics of how she was to enter his abode had been worked out – she had a personal shield to mask her presence, which he used in conjunction with some of his own highly illegal tech – he found himself pacing as he awaited the quiet knock at his door that was their agreed-upon signal.

She entered the flat quietly, moving slowly and carefully but with little of the innate grace that Marla had had bred into her. Khan silently catalogued the other differences, adding them up and yet not at all finding her wanting. No, she'd managed to arouse more than just his interest. He'd never been one to confine himself to a single lover, even after he'd taken Marla as his consort. None of the members of their Augmented community saw any inherent morality in sexual fidelity, men or women, and he'd been tolerant of the few lovers Marla had taken from time to time. More to tweak him, to remind him that he no more owned her than she owned him, he thought smugly, than out of any sort of perceived lack in their sexual relations.

He, on the other hand, simply craved variety from time to time. Also because for him, the leader of them all, to go without a woman in his bed just because his consort was on another continent would be seen as a weakness, the sort of weakness he simply could not afford to show.

These thoughts and many others flashed through his mind in the few seconds it took her to fully enter the main room. He crossed behind her, noting that she was careful not to show her back to him – amusing, considering he could take her down as easily as a kitten if he so desired – deliberately locking and coding the door shut so that only he could open it.

"I see you've read over the information my friend gave you earlier today."

"It's a bit risky, meeting me in my home," he said by way of reply, purposefully taking a seat without offering her the same courtesy, curious to see what she would do. It was no surprise when she calmly pulled up one of the straight-backed chairs from his small dining table, placing it directly in front of his and taking a seat just out of arm's reach (_although he could so very easily lunge forward and pin her to the floor, before she could so much as blink, his mouth at her throat and his hands exploring her slender form…no, not the time for such thoughts_).

He leaned back in his chair and once again raised his fingers beneath his chin as he sought to control his increasingly aroused thoughts. He heard her breath catch, and suppressed the urge to grin in triumph. Several of the images of his descendent showed him in that very pose, one that Khan favored for thinking as it gave him a focal point on which to concentrate. He supposed Sherlock must do it for the same reason, but he'd also intuited that imitating that pose would affect the woman sitting across from him. "I'm under constant surveillance," he went on, as if her reaction had gone unnoticed, "but then, you know that already. Your man, Wiggins, was very careful to approach me when the crowds were thickest and he knew we'd have a minute of uninterrupted time for him to pass me the data chip."

Her eyes widened in dismay as he so casually tossed out the computer man's name; she'd thought to keep his identity a secret? From him, Khan Noonian Singh? Foolish of her to underestimate him. "I presume you have a pressing reason for doing so," he added pointedly as she remained silent, lips slightly parted and her expression distinctly flustered. "I also presume that pressing reason has everything to do with your husband's current health crisis."

Sherlock's medical history had been quite the intriguing read and was clearly the only reason Dr. Hooper had made this desperate attempt to contact him.

She swallowed, closing her mouth before nodding. "There's no cure for Bardin's syndrome, even now," she said quietly, desperation drawing deep lines in her otherwise youthful face; her biography stated she was thirty-three years of age, but her images on screen had appeared much younger. Worry and fear for her husband's life were prematurely aging her; he knew well how such lines could become permanently etched in one's face, but allowed himself to feel no pity for her. "The doctors give him only another six months at most; even the stasis field won't retard the symptoms for much longer."

"And you wish me to help you," he replied flatly.

She hesitated, then nodded, her expression turning resolute. "Yes. I've done some research, even got my hand on a DNA sample…" That was interesting; he was curious to know how she'd managed that, but it could wait until later. He simply looked at her expressionlessly, waiting for her to say the words he knew she would speak next.

She didn't disappoint; rushing the words out, trying not to show her desperation but failing miserably, she said, "Your blood, Khan. I know about its healing properties, how they're peculiar to your Augmentation. A small vial of your blood would be, would be enough to…" Her voice caught, wavered, and she visibly fought back tears as she fought to rein in her obvious emotions. Fear, gut-clawing, heart-stabbing fear for the man she loved. He felt a surge of triumph as he recognized how deeply she loved that man lying unconscious in a hospital not many miles from where he slaved daily for Marcus' ambitions; such knowledge was as much a weapon as anything he'd ever designed.

He waited with inhuman patience while she got herself back under control, unmoving as he watched her struggle through impassive eyes. "Your blood," she repeated, her voice a bit uneven but the threatening tears held at bay. "Your blood could save him. Please, will you allow me to use it to save him?"

He lowered his hands from his face, a small, cold smile briefly tuning up the corners of his lips. "Why should I?"

"Because he's your flesh and blood, your descendent," she responded instantly, as if expecting the question. "Your dedication to your family is well documented, even by critics…"

"_All_ the histories that have been written about me and my family are critical," he sneered dismissively. "Don't seek to attempt to win my aid through such obvious methods. I can assure you, Dr. Hooper," he added, leaning forward and watching with thinly veiled amusement as she pressed herself back in her chair before catching herself and straightening back up, "such sentiment will not work on me. No, you'll have to give me a far more compelling reason to donate so much as a single drop of my blood for your use."

She opened her mouth to speak, but he continued on, not allowing her to get a word in edgewise. Not yet. "Please don't waste my time with threatening bluffs, either. My scanners confirm you have no weapons on your person, no phaser tucked into your jacket pocket or knife slipped into the top of your boot, no hidden toxins about your person that could affect me even the slightest. No way to coerce me to do you bidding with the threat of violence."

Giving into the urge he'd been resisting ever since she took her seat, he jumped up and forward, hauling her to her feet, his hands gripping her upper arms. She gasped and reflexively struggled to free herself. Yanking her closer, he stared coldly into her wide, frightened eyes and snarled, "And I can assure you, Dr. Hooper, that even if you had managed to smuggle in such a weapon, I would give you no opportunity to use it on me."

Then he released her, shoving her back into her seat before retaking his own. Her breathing was harsh, ragged, her pulse thundering madly in her throat, whereas he scarcely had a hair out of place. "Now. Where were we? Ah yes, discussing your need for my assistance." He gave her a thin smile. "Your husband may be my descendent, but I don't know anything about him except what I've read today. To be honest," he added carelessly, "I don't even know which woman I bedded is the mother of the child I must have left behind on Earth three hundred years ago."

She made as if to object, but he once again ploughed right over her words, not bothering to raise his voice. "No, Dr. Hooper, I'm afraid Sherlock Holmes means nothing to me, less than nothing. He's a genetic anomaly, I will grant you that. I also grant that I'm intrigued that he so closely resembles me, at least physically – Augmented genes have proven more impressively dominant than even I could have predicted – but whether he lives or dies?" He slowly, deliberately shook his head. "I couldn't possibly care less."

Molly had gone whiter and whiter as he spoke, and her next words were bitter and disbelieving. "You really are a monster! How can you just sit there, knowing you could save the life of your own great-great grandson, and not…"

"Name calling certainly isn't the way to get me to cooperate," Khan broke in coldly. Molly's eyes widened a fraction, then narrowed. He could practically see the wheels turning as she parsed his possible meaning. He'd already deduced her intelligence, although it was certainly no match for his own; now was the time to see just how intelligent she truly was.

"Then what, what _is_ the way to get you to cooperate?" she finally whispered, as if hardly daring to hope. Nor should she; he hadn't entirely made up his mind yet if this many-times-removed offspring was worth risking himself over more than he already had.

Then Molly's tongue darted out, touching the corner of her lips, and he found himself captivated by the simple movement. Gods, she looked more like Marla than his mate's own sister had; unbidden, his mind brought up the memory of the last time the two of them had made love, on the hard metal flight deck of the _Botany Bay_ while the others slept their frozen sleep in their cryotubes.

"What do you want, Khan?" Molly asked, breaking the temporary spell under which he'd fallen. "Tell me," she said, not quite begging. Not yet, but soon he would have her on her knees... "What do you want? You know I'll give you everything I –"

Khan smiled his cruelest smile before answering, enjoying the hot rush of want and need flooding his system as he spoke. "Everything, Dr. Hooper? I neither want nor need 'everything'." His smile turned feral as he added, "I only want _you_."


	3. Sealing the Deal

**Warnings for dubcon and marital infedility.**_ (If you didn't see that this was where this story was going, well, now you do. Told you it was gonna be dark - and it's far from over.)_

_A/N: Thanks to allthebellsinvenice for looking this over for me as always. And thanks to the readers and followers and reviewers as well. :)_

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Molly stared at the man sitting opposite her, stunned, not sure she'd heard him correctly. "What, what do you mean?" she asked, heart hammering in her chest. Suddenly it was hard to breathe, and it had already been difficult talking to a man who looked and sounded so much like Sherlock that they could have been twins rather than distant relatives born nearly three hundred years apart.

However, any resemblance between the two men had been instantly erased when Khan had moved with such frightening speed, hurling himself out of his chair where he'd been lounging comfortably, pulling her up, holding her so closely in his powerful grip while all she could do was gape at him. She'd endured his taunts about her lack of a weapon; they were true, after all. She'd considered bringing a pilfered phaser – Wiggins could get his hands on any number of interesting items of contraband even though he'd been working on the 'right' side of the law for five years now – but had ultimately discarded the idea as too risky. She'd read about Khan, about his abilities and enhanced speed and strength, which remained even in diluted form in his family's bloodline, but still…nothing could have prepared her for the ferocity with which he'd acted.

Nor could it have prepared her for what she thought he was telling her he wanted of her. That had never even occurred to her, that he might ask for sexual favors in exchange for his assistance.

Even worse was the fact that she wasn't entirely disgusted by the idea. She tried to tell herself it was simply a case of her body reacting to his physical resemblance to her comatose husband, or the way both men's voices had the exact same timbre and depth, but knew she was lying to herself. There was something about Khan himself that attracted her, appealed to the most primitive part of her mind and body, electrifying her limbic system the way no other man but Sherlock ever had.

While she sat there, dithering when her husband's life was on the line, Khan moved. Not with that startling speed he'd demonstrated when he'd accosted her earlier (when she'd first felt a jolt of physical desire for a man she should despise as a war criminal and genetic abomination), but with a slow, deliberate grace that brought to mind nature vids she'd seen of the few remaining large jungle cats left on Earth. A stalking panther, or a jaguar about to pounce.

Before she knew it she was on her feet, his large hand (God, even their hands looked the same) curling around her wrist, holding her tightly but not painfully. His mouth hovered over hers for a long, breathless moment, his smouldering gaze holding hers. He must have read something in her eyes, surrender or at least lack of objections; his own lit with a dark triumph as his lips crashed down over hers in a scorching kiss.

Things escalated quickly from there. Although Molly had still given no verbal consent, neither did she resist when he began tugging at her clothing, dropping it on the floor, kneeling down to remove her ankle-high grey boots and then returning to his feet that with a feral, fluid grace that had her so bemused she could barely remember her own name.

Only when they were both naked, her back pressed against his bedroom wall, his body hemming hers in, did she raise a protesting hand and lay it on his chest. "Wait, stop," she said breathlessly.

Instantly he stilled, as if he hadn't been rutting against her, nipping at her throat, one leg thrust between hers, his hands on her hips and his intentions quite clear. "What?" he asked, a low growl, his eyes heavy lidded and dark with passion as they bored into her own. "Don't expect me to believe you've changed your mind, Dr. Hooper." He took a deep, vulgar sniff of the air and bared his teeth in another one of those feral grins as he added, "Not when I can _smell_ how much you want me right now." One hand drifted down, not quite touching the wet opening to her sex. "Not when I can practically taste it," he said in a low purr. "Don't try to deny it, Dr. Hooper."

She shuddered at the repeat of her name and title falling from his lips, such formality in such a primal setting. "You promise…you agree to give me a sample of your blood? To save Sherlock's life?" She would not make this sacrifice, would not willingly give herself to this man, no matter how much she wanted him (_and God, yes, she wanted him, there was no point in denying it now_), without the reassurance that he would do as she'd asked. She loved her husband enough to be willing to do literally anything to save his life, but she had to know now, before she crossed another line, that Khan would keep his promise. Not that he'd made one yet, which she was just beginning to recall.

"I do not break my word once given, Dr. Hooper," he said as she stared at him as resolutely as she could manage, considering how utterly wrecked she knew she must look in this moment.

"And is that word given?" she asked, pleased that her voice was as steady as his.

His hot gaze caused her body to react as if physically touched; her skin flushed with heat, her nipples tightened into hard little nubs, and the apex of legs and torso was suddenly slick with a flood of moisture that could never be wished away as sweat. She watched, fascinated and aroused, as Khan's eyes fluttered shut, nostrils flaring as he once again breathed in her scent, an obscene display that only served to heighten her arousal.

When he spoke, it was a single word, holding her entire future in its lone syllable.

"_Yes."_

**oOo**

She was aroused; he could smell it on her, taste it in the very air surrounding them. Khan felt a fierce surge of triumph at the thought that she wasn't merely enduring his body against hers; she wasn't merely thinking of her comatose spouse and forcing herself to allow Khan to touch her, to kiss her and taste her. No, she wanted him as badly as he wanted her.

He busied himself cataloguing the sounds Molly made as his lips and teeth nipped at her throat, as his hands covered her pert little breasts and squeezed, as he ground his erection against her sex. They were still standing, with her lithe body pressed against the bedroom wall, and although he'd considered lifting her up and carrying her to his bed, the idea of taking her like this, of bearing her slight weight in his hands and thrusting deep within her, excited him almost past reason.

He wasn't worried about disease, either giving or receiving; his immune system, like everything else about him, was superior and even the alien viruses that occasionally manifested in the human population had proven to be no match for his Augmented genes. Nor was he a carrier of any diseases himself, so Molly was safe, which he presumed she already knew. That only left pregnancy as a possible deterrent to full penetration, but his suspicions regarding that matter were swiftly allayed when she gasped out, "Implant, and shots are all up to…"

He silenced her with a kiss, swift and merciless, that left her gasping for breath as he dropped to his knees, gently prying her thighs further apart. After offering her a wicked smile, he ducked his head and pressed his lips over the soft curve of her abdomen, hands moving slowly up till his thumbs brushed up against the damp curls of her pubic hair. An indrawn breath, a subtle tensing in her body, and he knew he would have her keening his name in no time.

Within seconds of his tongue swiping a languorous stripe up the slightly parted lips of her sex she was grasping his hair; within minutes she was bucking beneath his ministrations, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps interspersed with delightfully high-pitched mewls of pleasure. He tongued her clit and felt it hardening into a miniature peak; another flick of his tongue, with the addition of his fingers deep inside her cunt and she was crying out, calling to God and chanting a stream of "yes yes yes". Not his name, not yet, but that, Khan thought contentedly as he rode out her orgasm, his mouth still against her overheated flesh, would come.

Speaking of things that would come…he stroked his straining cock as he rose to his feet, holding Molly steady with his other hand, his arm wrapped securely around her waist. Her eyes were still tightly shut, and a series of small, barely discernible shudders wracked her frame as he planted several small kisses along the column of her throat. She was a far cry from the composed, determined woman who had entered his flat less than an hour ago; her face was red and beaded with sweat, her hair coming loose from the neat pony-tail and lying in bedraggled strands along her forehead and cheeks. He pulled the elastic restraining those glorious chestnut locks to the floor, carding through her hair with the fingers of one hand while the other stroked her overheated flesh. Her nipples were pebbled nubs he couldn't resist tasting again, and he bent down to take the left one into his mouth, sucking hard and grinning inwardly at the loud moan that escaped her throat.

"Sher…Khan, please," she begged, tugging at his hair in a futile effort to pull him away. "I need to…too sensitive…"

He ignored her little almost slip of the tongue, bringing his mouth back up to hers for a lingering kiss, making sure she could taste herself on his lips and tongue. Then he lifted her left leg and before she was aware of his intentions, took himself in hand and thrust deep within her.

Her deep wail of shocked pleasure was music to his ears, and he nipped her throat sharply before growling, "I'm going to fuck you now, Molly, make you come again and again until you lose utter control of yourself." He punctuated his words – promises – with little thrusts of his hips, feeling her hot, wet heat sheathe itself around him, the muscular tug of her vagina a delicious promise of things to come.

**oOo**

Molly could hardly believe her own wanton actions as she clutched Khan to her, the obscene sound of their bodies slapping together as he moved deep within her. The sharp keen that left her throat, the hammering of her heart in her chest, all of it was familiar and yet foreign to her at the same time. How could she possibly be enjoying this, how could she stand to look at herself in the mirror after letting this cold-blooded murderer wring so much pleasure from her traitorous body?

Then he thrust his hips and lifted her body, urging her to wrap her legs around his waist as he rutted up into her, and her mind went blissfully blank. There would be time enough for regrets and self-recrimination once she was on her way with a sample of his blood safely in her possession; for now, she would be best served if she simply gave into the overwhelming desire he elicited in her body and ignore the incipient ache in her heart at having betrayed the man she loved in so base a manner.

If this would save her husband's life, she'd do it again, a thousand times over. And if he turned from her in disgust – because of course she would tell him the truth, even without the worry that he'd somehow deduce it from his hospital bed – it was a price she was more than willing to pay. Sherlock alive and well, even if forever parted from her, was far preferable to Sherlock cold in his grave.

Khan twisted his hips with a sharp movement, his hands sliding around to lift her body higher, wringing a cry of pleasure from her lips. He darted his head forward, capturing her mouth beneath his, his tongue thrusting in time to the movements of his body as she wrapped her legs around his waist and dug her fingernails into his muscular shoulders. She tilted her head back as the kiss ended, gasping for breath and moaning as he moved his mouth to her throat, teeth dragging across the tender flesh. He nipped at her earlobe, then settled his mouth and teeth more firmly to the soft part beneath her right ear. There would be a mark; she would make sure to take the time to erase it before visiting the hospital in the morning.

"You'll stay the night," Khan growled, hips moving faster and faster, so fast she could only hold on for dear life. He nuzzled the bruise he'd sucked into her throat, but in spite of the tender movements of his lips she knew his words were less a request than a command. She shivered and moaned, feeling the beginnings of her second orgasm washing over her, starting at the point where their bodies were so tightly joined. "One night, tonight, and never again afterwards…unless," he added with a triumphant gleam in his eyes as they met hers, "you desire it."

As if his words had been a signal, her body tipped over the edge, and she cried out as she rocked furiously against him, almost matching his speed in the throes of her passion. With a roar he joined her, spilling his hot seed deep inside her and holding her tightly in his arms.

Instead of allowing her to regain her (admittedly wobbly) feet, once Khan had recovered from his orgasm, he carried Molly over to his bed. The sheets were black Tholian silk, the tell-tale shimmer in the weave giving the expensive (and illegal) fabric away, and the mattress was firm yet sinfully soft to the touch. Very much like Khan himself: exotic, illicit, exciting.

As he sank down on the bed next to her, Molly felt regret overwhelming her, and guilt, but firmly pushed her feelings aside. She'd made this devil's bargain of her own free will, and Sherlock's life was well worth any price she was forced to pay.

She allowed Khan to hold her in his arms, to press soft kisses to the back of her neck, her throat, her shoulder, to do what he liked to her and with her for the rest of the night. Her last coherent thought before he did just that was a defiant one: If her marriage was going to be destroyed because of this night, then she was damned well going to make the most of it.

* * *

_Next chapter: Is Khan a man of his word? Will Molly get what she sacrificed so much for? Stay tuned! (Hint: The next chapter title is "Awakenings")_


	4. The Morning After The Night Before

_A/N: Many thanks to the wonderful (and still, at this time, pregnant) allthebellsinvenice for looking this chapter over for me. There's quite a bit of angst in it, and remember, follks, it's a bit of a love triangle involving infedility and a much darker Khan than I usually write._

* * *

She'd seen an old 2D vid once when she was a teenager, downloaded it out of curiosity and boredom one rainy afternoon when she was fourteen or fifteen. She couldn't remember anything much about it now, nearly twenty years later, except for one particular scene, where the heroine skulked out of the shoddy flat of her one-night stand, knickers tucked into her handbag and a look of trepidation on her face. Of course she ran into someone she knew, who teased her about her 'walk of shame', a term Molly then had to look up – and whose definition utterly astonished her. Really, women in the 21st century were held up to such an archaic double standard when it came to sex?

Now, in the early morning sunshine, less than ten hours after she'd arrived at Khan's flat, she understood the concept in a way she never had before.

She'd betrayed her marriage vows and her husband, the man she loved more than life itself, made a devil's bargain and taken her pleasure from it, all for the vial of blood secreted away in the bottom of her handbag. It wasn't a pair of soiled knickers, but it brought the same sense of shame the female lead in that long-ago vid had exhibited.

"It was worth it," she whispered to herself as she quickly sent a text message to Billy Wiggins on her personal communicator. Just two words as she made her way to the nearest transport station. _Got it._

Now, all she had to do was introduce the precious blood with its healing properties into her husband's system, and pray that it would do what Khan and her own research said it would do.

**oOo**

Khan watched from his sitting room window as Molly Hooper hurried across the street, tapping out a message of some kind – a brief one, no doubt letting her computer man know that she'd achieved her goal.

He smiled to himself, a cold smile that curled his lips but never reached his eyes as she vanished from his sight. Ah, the memories of their night together would amuse him for weeks to come, just as he knew it would torture her. He laid a silent bet with himself as he padded into his small kitchen area, uncaring of his nudity as he perched on the cool metal stool and dialed up a hearty breakfast: the first thing she would do after reviving her husband – and she would revive him, he was confident of his blood's unique healing properties although this would be its first true test – would be to blurt out what she'd done to obtain the miracle cure.

"I wonder how long it will take Mr. Sherlock Holmes to pay me a visit after that," he mused before taking a sip of his coffee – black, two sugars – and smiling to himself again.

Of course, if Molly's husband chose to take the high road and simply accept his miraculous cure without confronting the man to whom she'd chosen to 'sacrifice' herself…well, he'd just have to make sure certain footage taken from the night before made its way into his hands, that was all.

There was so little to amuse him these days, to distract him from the unbearable imprisonment imposed upon him by Admiral Marcus, that he could hardly be blamed for snatching up such moments when he could. It was a dangerous game he was playing, true, but that was the only kind he'd ever played.

**oOo**

The machines beeping quietly in the background were the first thing he heard when he awoke, then the soft sound of someone snoring by his side. Molly; he'd recognize her anywhere. He remembered where he was of course, his mind as sharp as when he'd reluctantly allowed himself to be placed into stasis – how long ago? He'd have to wake Molly up to find out, and he was somewhat reluctant to do so. Either he'd been awoken because a cure had been found (statistically unlikely) or because something drastic had happened, some emergency requiring his keen intellect. Those were the only two scenarios under which Molly had agreed to bring him out of his enforced slumber.

Not that what he'd undergone had in any way resembled sleep; he might have only closed his eyes a few brief seconds ago for all he could tell. There was no sense of time having passed, no dreaming, nothing but the darkness between one heartbeat and the next.

He opened his eyes and turned his head, to see his wife curled up in the chair by his bedside. He studied her, so open and vulnerable, and marveled anew that she'd chosen him to love. He'd considered himself unlovable for the bulk of his life, too sharp with his tongue, too impatient of the masses of lesser minds surrounding him – he'd treated her rather badly when they'd first met, used her to get his way, ruthlessly taken advantage of her obvious attraction to him. It wasn't until John Watson had come into his life and almost literally forced him to reevaluate his life and the people he unwittingly come to rely on that he'd acknowledged how important Molly Hooper was – and always would be – to him.

He didn't deserve her, he never had, but after he'd told her that, she'd advised him that her heart was hers to give. "And you, Sherlock Holmes, have no say in who I love," she'd admonished him, right before they shared their first kiss.

Without thinking he reached out and laid his hand on her arm; she startled awake as if she'd been slapped, sitting bolt upright, eyes wide open and a gasp on her lips as she finally settled her gaze on him. "Hello," he said, hating the slight raspiness of his voice. Still, it wasn't much worse than if he was simply greeting her in the morning after rare night's sleep. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you."

"Oh, Sherlock!" she cried out, face crumpling as she threw herself into his arms. He held her close, waiting patiently for the storm of emotion to pass. Yes, he was ill and dying, but surely there was something else he was sensing from her? Other people's feelings weren't his area, never had been, but he'd become sensitive to hers and there was almost an edge of hysteria in the way she was holding him so closely. "You're awake, it worked!"

Ah, that was it, then; a cure had been found, no wonder she was so overwrought! "How long?"

"Only a few months," she replied, turning her head but not yet looking at him – why not? "London's still there, and John and Mary, you can get back to work just as soon as you like."

Unconsciously he tightened his hold as she finally raised her face and gave him a watery smile. "I can't believe it worked," she whispered.

"And what exactly is 'it'?" he asked, studying her closely.

Right before his eyes her expression and body language altered; it was as if she'd suddenly shrunk in on herself as she pulled away from him, eyes wide with something approaching fear. Suddenly his own condition was the least of his concerns. Narrowing his eyes, he took in every nuance, every hint from her expression and the changes in her body language and even her sudden silence. What exactly was going on? Only one way to find out; even though he hated turning his deductive reasoning on his own wife, he suspected she wouldn't be entirely forthcoming if he didn't.

"What's wrong?" he demanded, catching her hand in his – good, no physical weakness, his hand and arm responded as automatically as they had before he'd fallen ill. There was no shakiness, either, none of the damned tremors he'd been plagued with for the six months before he'd been placed into stasis.

Still no response from his wife, who could no longer meet his gaze. "You feel guilty, why do you feel guilty? Oh!" he exclaimed as understanding washed over him. As he expanded his observations beyond his wife's reactions, he took in the fact that there were no medical personnel around them; not even John was here, when at the very least a nurse or medic would be required to release him from stasis and administer whatever medication had been used to effect his cure. Nor would such medical personnel have left the two of them alone, even for sentiment's sake. No, someone official should be monitoring his reactions, checking his vital signs and cognitive functions – which appeared to be at peak efficiency, good sign – and asking him dozens of tedious, repetitive questions. "It's something illegal, is it? From off-world…no, not just off-world, from outside the Federation, something the doctors didn't or wouldn't approve, but you were desperate so you tried it anyway."

He could see her struggling between laughter and tears, and finally giving into both, wiping at her eyes as a small, choked laugh escaped her lips. "Jesus, Sherlock, you've just woken up from a medically-induced coma after being ill for months, don't you think you should be saving the d-deductions for later?"

It was such a tiny thing, but it sent a sliver of ice up his spine and settled deep in his abdomen. Molly was stuttering, she never stuttered, not around him, not any more. Not since the earliest days of their working relationship, before he'd come to recognize how much he cared for her, how much she mattered to him. He'd nearly lost her to his own stupidity, by pushing her away in the foolish belief that being alone kept him strong, that he was essentially unlovable, but fortunately John and Mary had helped him to understand just how wrong he was. She'd nearly married another man, and then he'd done some fairly unforgivable things while pursuing a case during that period of time, but in spite of all that, here they were, nearly ten years later, married and deeply in love with one another.

So why was she stuttering again? It wasn't simply her emotions overcoming her, it must have something to do with the guilt he could still read in her microexpressions and body language.

"Molly," he said warningly, then watched in helpless disbelief as his strong, loving wife virtually fell apart in front of him. She tugged her hand from his grasp, covering her face as wrenching sobs wracked her form. She was speaking, gasping out words in between harsh breaths, words he couldn't – didn't _want_ to – understand at first. Blood was one of them, and an Augment named Khan (there were no Augments, they'd brought about their own deaths in the chaos of the Third World War), and the price he'd exacted from her in exchange for the precious fluid, the one that supposedly held a miracle cure in its DNA…

"NO!" The flood of words stopped at his shouted word, although the tears continued to flow. Molly stared at him, but he found himself suddenly unable to meet her fearful gaze. He sat up, ignoring the fact that he would have had trouble doing even that much without help in the days before he'd agreed to be put into stasis. "Molly, none of what you're saying makes any sense, and I can only conclude that you've suffered some sort of…mental breakdown due to my supposed cure. If," he added with a harsh glare, "it actually is a cure and not simply some sort of temporary improvement in my condition from being in stasis."

Molly gave a sobbing, bitter laugh as she rose to her feet, scrubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands and turning her back on him. "I know it sounds crazy, Sherlock, but it's true, every word." She sounded tired – no, defeated – and he saw the sadness in her eyes as she finally turned to face him, arms crossed defensively over her chest. "The data is all there for you to see." She nodded at the PADD he saw resting on the small bedside table. "As for what I did to get the cure…" She raised her chin in a sad simulation of her most stubborn look. "I won't say I'm sorry, because it worked. I did it for you, because I love you and I'd rather – I'd rather lose your love than watch you die."

He had nothing to say to that, not when he was struggling to restrain the sense of betrayal her confession had aroused in his breast. He supposed he should simply thank her and let it go, but he'd never been that kind of man – and right now it was all too raw, too immediate, for him to feel anything like forgiveness or gratitude. "Well. I suppose you'd better undo whatever it is you did to keep the doctors from being aware of your actions here today, Molly, so the professionals can examine me and make sure that this 'miracle cure' hasn't actually done more harm than good."

She paled and sucked in a breath at his harsh words, her brown eyes enormous, lips pinched, but nodded and fumbled for her communicator. She punched in a brief message – Billy Wiggins must be part of this scheme – and a few minutes later there was a subtle change in the sounds given off by the machinery surrounding him. "The dampener field's been deactivated," she said. "John's been alerted, he should be here soon." She nodded again at the data PADD. "Everything pertinent to your condition is on there. It's up to you if you decide to tell the medical staff what I did."

He turned away from her, from the offered information, curling on his side and closing his eyes. "Just go, Molly," he said, hating the coldness of his voice but unable to bring himself to do anything about it. "I'm sure your new lover will want to hear all about your…success."

A muffled sob, a whispered, "You bastard," and then the sound of her footsteps as she half-ran for the door, which slid open in response to her presence. After that, silence, broken only by the soft beeps and hums of the machinery – and the clamor of his own discordant thoughts.


	5. Family Troubles

_**Previously:** She tugged her hand from his grasp, covering her face as wrenching sobs wracked her form. She was speaking, gasping out words in between harsh breaths, words he couldn't – didn't want to – understand at first. Blood was one of them, and an Augment named Khan (there were no Augments, they'd brought about their own deaths in the chaos of the Third World War), and the price he'd exacted from her in exchange for the precious fluid, the one that supposedly held a miracle cure in its DNA… _

_"NO!" The flood of words stopped at his shouted word, although the tears continued to flow. "Molly, none of what you're saying makes any sense, and I can only conclude that you've suffered some sort of…mental breakdown due to my supposed cure. If," he added with a harsh glare, "it actually is a cure and not simply some sort of temporary improvement in my condition from being in stasis."_

_Molly gave a sobbing, bitter laugh as she rose to her feet, scrubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands and turning her back on him. "I know it sounds crazy, Sherlock, but it's true, every word.I won't say I'm sorry, because it worked. I did it for you, because I love you and I'd rather – I'd rather lose your love than watch you die."_

_He had nothing to say to that, not when he was struggling to restrain the sense of betrayal her confession had aroused in his breast. "Just go, Molly," he said, hating the coldness of his voice but unable to bring himself to do anything about it. "I'm sure your new lover will want to hear all about your…success." _

_A muffled sob, a whispered, "You bastard," and then the sound of her footsteps as she half-ran for the door, which slid open in response to her presence. After that, silence, broken only by the soft beeps and hums of the machinery – and the clamor of his own discordant thoughts._

* * *

"So, you wanna talk about it, mate? Or do you plan to just let it fester until it kills you faster than the Bardin's syndrome was?"

Sherlock turned his head and scowled at John. Who simply looked back at him, unfazed, and sipped from his cup of tea. John was currently sitting in Sherlock's chair, while Sherlock lay curled on the sofa, his back to the room, where he'd essentially been since his discharge from the medical facility three days prior. He turned away, hunching himself into a tighter ball. "You're a doctor, John; you know damned well that emotions don't kill you."

"Some do," John replied. "Depression used to kill a lot of people before treatments were found and medication improved."

"I'm not depressed," Sherlock shot back. "I'm angry."

"Angry? Why?" John was honestly confused; any other man having been given an unexpected reprieve from a death-sentence - which Bardin's syndrome most definitely was - would be relieved, at the very least. Happy. Grateful, even. Was he angry at the as-yet unrevealed source of the cure?

John studied him closely. It had been three days since he'd received a message from Molly, advising him to get to the medical facility where Sherlock was being monitored as quickly as possible. He was still in a bit of a state of shock at the sight that had greeted him: Sherlock, sitting up, calmly dressing himself and less calmly telling the doctors and nurses gathered round him that no, he wasn't going to tell them how he came to be awake or by what means he'd been cured.

And cured he absolutely was: the simple scan he allowed showed no signs of the disease that had been killing him, nor were there any visible signs of deterioration: his skin color was good, his eyes clear, his scathing commentary evidence that neither his mental abilities nor his scintillating personality had suffered any permanent damage. He'd demanded that John take him home, back to Baker Street, and that was just what he'd done, his medical instincts overridden – as was always true where Sherlock Holmes was concerned – by his friendship with the other man.

But the three days that had passed since that morning had been three days with one very conspicuous absence: Molly was nowhere to be found. Oh, it wasn't that she'd been kidnapped (again!) or left the planet or even Great Britain; she was staying with her friend Meena in the north of Scotland, she told John during the one face-to-face comm message they'd had, and asked that she only be contacted in case of emergency. Or until Sherlock was ready to 'hear her'. Not 'talk to her' but 'hear her'. Hear her saying _what_, however, she refused to divulge. Obviously her absence, Sherlock's strop, and his miraculous awakening were all connected; but as to the details, John was still very much in the dark.

Molly...no, surely it couldn't be... "Are you angry at Molly? Why? What did she - "

Sherlock hunched his shoulders and turned away. "Not anymore," he mumbled.

"But you _were _angry with her," John pressed. "Why? What did she do?" No answer. John shook his shoulder. "Sherlock! What did she do?"

"She slept with him, okay?" Sherlock shouted. "Are you happy now?" He raked agitated fingers through his tangled curls while John gaped at him.

"Wait, what?" John could barely wrap his brain around the concept of Sherlock's wife being unfaithful - not without a really good reason. Such as… "Jesus," he said softly, feelingly. "She had to sleep with some asshole or he wouldn't help her, wouldn't give her the cure. And you, what, yelled at her, told her off?"

Sherlock closed his eyes, but John was having none of it. "She did what she had to to save your life," he said, shaking his friend's shoulder again, a bit more roughly this time.

"I know!" Sherlock shouted, springing to his feet and pacing circles around the sitting room. "I know, she did this for me, to save me." He jabbed his hands into his chest as he came to a stop. "And we both know the truth: that I'm not worth saving. Not when I brought all this on myself. If I had just listened to her in the first place, I never would have gotten infected, but no, I was too busy being clever, thinking I was smarter than that bastard Moran, let him get close enough to use the hypospray on me."

That had been one of the worst days of John's life, when he'd received Molly's frantic call for help over the comm system. Moriarty's lieutenant had been a cold-blooded killer most of his adult life, the kind who murdered you from a distance with a phaser rifle or Klingon disruptor, but had chosen a slow, painful death for Sherlock in revenge for the loss of his employer - and lover. It was just as well that he'd killed himself rather than be taken into custody because there were too many people who'd be happy to turn a blind eye if the man happened to be 'accidentally' shipped to the Klingon prison planet, Rure Penthe.

"So you feel guilty," John said. "And you should feel guilty. But you should also be down on your knees begging for her forgiveness on all counts: for getting yourself into such a situation, and for taking it out on her when she told you how she'd saved you."

"It's probably too late. If she's as intelligent as we both know she is, she regrets ever wasting a single second of her time on me." John had to strain to hear him as he added in a low voice, "She's probably gone back to _him_."

"Who, the bastard who coerced her into having sex with him before he gave her the cure? Why would she? And why," he added, unable to resist being sidetracked by the less personal aspect of the problem, "won't you share this cure with the medical profession? I know you don't have a high opinion of humanity in general, Sherlock, but to deprive the world of a cure for such a deadly disease – "

"I'm not depriving the world of anything," Sherlock interrupted him testily. "Trust me when I say it's unlikely to ever be replicated, and the man who holds the key is even more of a selfish bastard than I am."

Before John could demand further explanations, a soft knock sounded at the door. He glanced at Sherlock, who was now standing, unmoving, in front of his desk. With a sigh John went over and opened the door, finding the Holmes' landlady, Mrs. Hudson, on the landing with an oddly old-fashioned paper-wrapped parcel in her hands. "This was just delivered," she said, sounding puzzled. She raised her voice a bit. "The scanner says it's coded to you Sherlock, but I thought you'd like to know someone hand-wrote a message on the back."

John thanked her, took the parcel, and shook his head when she asked if he wanted some tea. "Not just now, Mrs. Hudson," he replied. "But thanks. Maybe later, I'll let you know."

"Oh, he's in a strop is he?" She shook her head sadly. "Been that way ever since he came back from hospital. I do hope Molly won't be stuck off-planet for much longer; that man is impossible when she's away!"

So _that _was the story Sherlock had given his landlady, eh? Without doing anything to contradict her beliefs, John managed to persuade her to go back downstairs to her own flat, reassuring her that he could manage a cup of tea if Sherlock showed any interest in a cuppa.

As soon as she was gone, he shut the door, turning the small parcel over in his hands in order to read the message that had been written across the back. "_How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have an ungrateful child_," he read. "Huh. Strange." He moved toward Sherlock, who had already started to cross the room. He took the mystery package impatiently from John's hands and read the inscription for himself, puzzlement drawing a line between his brows. "Sounds like a quote of some kind. Computer, explain origin..."

"Never mind that," John interrupted. "I know that one. _King Lear_." At Sherlock's blank look, John added, "Shakespeare? The play, _King Lear_? Don't tell me you've deleted one of England's most famous playwrights!"

Sherlock's scowl answered _that _question. "Right, then," John said. "Lear says it when his daughter goes back on her word and fails to treat him with the respect he feels he's owed." He shrugged. "Maybe it's a client having family troubles? Guess you won't know until you've opened that." He nodded at the package Sherlock was currently studying from every possible angle. Even though it was a distraction from the conversation they'd been having about Molly and the cure she'd delivered at such a tawdry price, John decided to let it go for now.

It was good to see his friend back to something approaching normal after months of illness and even more months of lying motionless and unconscious in a stasis chamber. Deductions were clearly whirling through his mind as he studied the way the package had been wrapped - very old-fashioned, with brown paper and some sort of clear adhesive sealing it shut - as well as the handwriting on the quote and the tracking code imprinted on the front.

"It's from him."

John almost asked which 'him' Sherlock meant before he realized it could only be one 'him'. "The one who provided the cure?" he asked instead. Just to confirm. "Not a client having family troubles?"

Sherlock gave a mirthless bark of laughter. "Family troubles," he said bitterly. "Yes, John, I'm afraid that's exactly what this is. Family troubles."

There was something about the way Sherlock said those two words that raised the hackles on the back of John's neck. He was about to demand clarification when Sherlock tore open the package and pulled out a narrow plastic box, which he then opened to reveal a single data chip carefully placed between several layers of packing foam. Again, very old-fashioned. John hadn't seen anything like it since his grandparents had been alive.

Without another word Sherlock strode over to the computer terminal set in the wall above his desk, yanked out whatever data chip had been in the slot, tossed it carelessly over his shoulder and very nearly shoved the new chip into the reader.

Although the screen remained blank, sound filled the room. Very recognizable, very _personal _sounds. "Uh, Sherlock, I don't know if I should be listening…"

"It's Molly," Sherlock said flatly.

John's eyes widened when the screen suddenly lit up, showing a clear picture of Molly's flushed, sweaty face, her eyes screwed shut and mouth open wide in a series of low cries whose nature could never be mistaken. Certainly not by any man who'd been fortunate enough to bring a woman to the pinnacle of physical pleasure. The camera scanned down her body, to show that she was being fucked against a wall by some man.

Some man presumably not Sherlock, who watched stoically as the camera scanned back up her body to her face. "He recorded it?" John said incredulously, fury rising in him at the mere thought of such a vile act. "What the fucking _hell _– ?!"

"Corneal cameras," was Sherlock's only response, his voice as cold and indifferent as if he was watching some other man's wife get fucked into oblivion. "Very new technology. Still classified by Starfleet, if I'm not mistaken."

"Sherlock," John said tightly, moving between his friend and the screen, "that man sent you this for a reason. Stop watching it, turn it off NOW and get Molly on the comm. You need to talk to her and not let this bastard play his mind-games with you."

"He's not the bastard in all this, at least not in the classical sense," Sherlock said, still sounding cold and remote. But his eyes told the truth; they positively _burned _with fury. "Technically my ancestor's child was the bastard. The one that continued the bloodline that I am the current sole heir to."

"Who is it?" John demanded, trying his best to ignore the male gasps that had joined Molly's higher pitched cries from the recording.

"I'll show you," Sherlock said, easing John aside. "Computer, freeze image," he commanded. Obediently Molly's writhing form stilled just as one large male hand (Caucasian, relatively hairless, long-fingered) covered her right breast. "Enhance any image reflected in female subject's eyes and import to secondary screen."

"_Working_." The mechanical, yet still recognizably female, voice of the computer spoke only the single word. As John watched, the computer zoomed in on Molly's eyes and extracting the requested images.

When it was finished, Sherlock ordered the images enlarged. John blinked, then shook his head. "Sherlock," he said hesitantly, "that man. He looks...he looks like…"

"Me," Sherlock finished for him softly. "He looks like me. Allow me to introduce you to my distinguished ancestor. Khan Noonian Singh, former ruler of roughly one-quarter of the world and current thorn in my side."

"But that's impossible!" John protested. "He's been dead for, what, over 300 years!"

Incredibly, Sherlock smiled. "Yes, it does present quite a mystery, doesn't it?" He leaned closer, staring intently into the eyes of his lookalike ancestor. "How," he murmured softly, "did my extremely clever wife find you?" His hands knotted into fists and slammed down forcefully on the desk. "And how difficult will it be for me to break your fucking neck?"


	6. The Calm Before

_A/N: All my thanks to allthebellsinvenice for looking over this chapter for me, and all my thanks to my loyal readers for being so patient! I appreciate the reviews and follows more than you can imagine!_

* * *

**London**

The package had been delivered, the data chip read...the bait taken.

Now the only question was how long would it be before a very irate Consulting Detective appeared on his doorstep, ready to fight for the honor of his lady. Many would scoff that chivalry was dead, but he knew better; like the tide, it ebbed and flowed.

He looked forward to meeting his descendent, and seeing just how much of his Augmented bloodline had survived through the generations.

He idly considered contacting Molly; she was staying with a friend in Scotland, and her absence from her miraculously-cured husband's side spoke volumes. More about _him _than her. Would Sherlock Holmes make the temporary separation a permanent one after he'd vented his anger - or at least, attempted to - on Khan's own flesh, or would he eventually be able to forgive his wife her sexual indiscretion?

Khan's smile deepened, dark enjoyment curling through his mind at the thought of fucking Molly once again. Which he would, should Sherlock Holmes prove to be the fool he currently was acting. The fact that she'd taken her own pleasure from their encounter must be salt in the wound she'd inflicted by trading her body for her husband's life. Men, even in this so-called enlightened 23rd century, were still men when it came right down to it: dominating, possessive, self-righteous, and utterly undeserving of the women who chose to love them.

**Scotland - Two Days Later**

"Molly, luv, you know I always enjoy your visits, but I just saw on the news that Sherlock's out of his coma. Which begs the question, why are you here?"

Molly took a sip of her wine, not wanting to answer Meena's question. She should have known his miraculous recovery wouldn't go unnoticed; his fame as a consulting detective was Federation-wide now. "What are the news reports saying?" She opted to respond to her friend's question with another question, avoiding giving her an actual answer.

"Nothing much, only that he's been cured but that it's due to some sort of genetic anomaly, not something that can be used for other patients suffering from Bardin's syndrome." Meena's face shone with concern as Molly paced restlessly, her wine glass clutched so tightly in her fingers that it might have shattered if it was made of glass rather than a plas-steel polymer. When she passed close by her, Meena reached out and laid a hand on her friend's shoulder, stopping her and finally catching her gaze. "Talk to me, Molls," she said softly. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Molly managed a tight smile. "Nothing much, I just sold my soul to the devil for a cure and Sherlock...didn't take it well." She gulped a mouthful of her wine, a rather decent red that in no ways deserved to be treated that way.

Meena McTavish - tall, blonde, and busty, the exact physical opposite of her best friend since uni - steered Molly toward the sofa, sitting next to her and clearly waiting for more of an explanation.

Too bad Molly didn't have one she was willing to share. It was bad enough that Sherlock knew what she'd done to save his life; there was no way she wanted anyone else to know her shame. Not in her actions, because she'd do them all again without hesitation if guaranteed the same outcome, but in her enjoyment of those actions. Willingly sleeping with someone to save a loved one's life was one thing; actively gaining pleasure from it was an entirely different kettle of fish.

"I can't tell you more than that, Meena," she finally said, picking her words with care. "It involves shady government secrets and I won't put you in any danger by giving out details. Let's just say I'm waiting for my husband to either come to his senses or else prove he's reverted back to being the selfish man-child I first met. If it's the former, which I don't think I need to say is the option I'd prefer, then great, I'll go home and things will get back to normal."

"And if it's the latter?"

Molly shrugged, downed the remainder of her red, and placed the glass on the coffee table. "Then I'll figure something out. I had a life before Sherlock Holmes, and I'll have a life after him."

What she didn't say, as Meena pulled her close for a comforting hug, was that it wasn't a life she was particularly looking forward to. Still, she had to consider the possibility that Sherlock, stubborn man that he was, might never be able to get past this.

The sound of the comm beeping caught their attention. "You'd better get that, it might be important," Molly said when it seemed her friend was planning to ignore the incoming transmission. Meena gave her a searching look, then nodded and stood up, heading purposefully for the small alcove where the comm system was located.

"Molly? I think you'd better come over here," she called as she read the ID of the caller. "It's John Watson."

Molly hurried over to join her friend, who waited until she was standing by her side before toggling the switch to accept the transmission.

John's weary face appeared on the screen. "Meena, hi," he said. "Sorry to ask this, but do you mind if I talk to Molly in private? It's about Sherlock."

"Has something happened? Is he all right?" Molly demanded before Meena could respond, leaning forward so her face was in view.

"Physically he's fine," John assured her. "Whatever it is you did for him, it's a bloody miracle."

Molly couldn't help the bitter chuckle at his choice of words, but waved away his inquiring look. "So if he's not relapsing or anything, what's wrong? If he's still upset, there isn't much I can do…"

"No, it's not that," John interrupted. He looked away from her, blew out a breath, then looked over her shoulder at their friend. "Meena, sorry, but would you mind…?"

She nodded, patting Molly on the back in reassurance. "I'll be upstairs if you need me. My love to Mary, John," she added. John managed a smile, but it vanished as soon as she was out of sight. He waited a few seconds, until Molly indicated that they were alone, before speaking again. "Look, there's no easy way to say this, so I'll just...it's Khan. The bastard sent Sherlock a vid. Of the two of you."

Molly sucked in a shocked breath, very glad she was sitting as a wave of dizziness swept over her. Why would he do something like that? She'd known he was cruel, some might even say heartless, but what could he possibly gain by betraying her like this? She'd given him what he demanded, in exchange for that single vial of his precious blood; she hadn't done anything to endanger his false identity or alert Starfleet to his activities… "Wait, you said Khan, so you know...Sherlock told you?" she asked as she tried to process what John had just told her.

He nodded grimly. "He did. He even showed me the data you and Wiggins had gathered, not that I needed proof; if you believed it and he believed it, then it was true. Impossible, but somehow true. But that's not what I contacted you for, Molly, not just that, anyway."

"It's Sherlock," she said numbly. "He's gone and done something rash, hasn't he."

"I can't say for sure," John admitted. "But when I came by the flat this morning, he was gone. And when I tried to talk to Wiggins, he was very evasive. I think...Molly, you said once that Wiggins could get his hands on all manner of contraband. Is - could he get his hands on a phaser or...or even a disruptor?"

Molly nodded, biting hard at the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. "He could," she said quietly, once she'd gotten her voice under control. "He was already looking into it when we found out about Khan. I decided not to… Oh, God, John, this is my fault!" she cried, pressing a trembling hand to her forehead. "I gave him the data, the proof that Khan was who he claimed to be, rather than who Starfleet said he was."

"Tell me the address," John urged her. "Let me go after him, Molly. Before he does something we'll all regret."

"It's in South London," Molly replied after a moment's hesitation. "I'll transmit it to you, but not over an unsecured channel. Do you still have that communicator Wiggins modified for you?" John nodded. "OK, good. I'll find the address and send it to you, give me a few minutes. And John?" He looked at her as she pressed her hand to the screen. "Be careful. Khan is extremely dangerous, and the people he's working for are just as dangerous."

"Yeah, I got the impression it wasn't just Starfleet, that it was some clandestine group within their ranks," he replied, then raised his hand and pressed it on his own screen, just over hers. "Try not to worry, Molly. I'll bring him back in one piece, I promise."

"Thanks." She managed a tremulous smile, then waited for him to end the transmission.

As soon as the screen went blank, Molly jumped to her feet, grabbing her handbag from its place on the floor by the sofa and pulling out her own communicator, punching in a familiar sequence of numbers. "Billy?" she said as the device beeped to signal a connection. She barely waited for him to acknowledge her before she was moving again, racing out the front door and making her way to the hovercar she'd rented. "I need you to get me to these coordinates," she said as she sped away from her friend's house. She reeled off the sequence of numbers and waited for him to repeat them back to her. "I'll leave the hover at the transit station. Once I'm there, can you hack into the emergency transport system? You can? Are you sure?" She smiled in relief at his indignant affirmative. "Sorry, I just need to make sure. I'll let you know when I'm at the station. Oh, and Billy? Whatever you do, don't let Doctor Watson know where you sent me." Her voice turned grim. "This is between me and Khan - and my stubborn ass of a husband."


	7. The Storm

_A/N: Many thanks to allthebellsinvenice for reading this over for me and helping me make it a bit smoother and more believable than the first draft. This is the penultimate chapter, and I want to say thank you very much for sticking it out this long!_

* * *

Khan came to consciousness swiftly, with no lingering aftereffects, to discover he was seated in his own chair, one of the heavy duranium ones, with his arms restrained behind his back. A quick test confirmed that whatever manacles had been attached to his wrists were too strong for him to easily break, and an attempt to move his legs confirmed that they had been restrained as well.

"Starfleet has yet to develop a sedative strong enough to knock me out for more than a few minutes at a time," he said, keeping his voice conversational in spite of his annoyance at his current situation. "Certainly not one that would last long enough for you to drag me to this chair and restrain me. Your knowledge of chemistry is impressive."

"Not nearly as impressive as the setup you have here," came the response - from the lips of exactly the man he'd expected to see.

"Sherlock Holmes," he said, with no small amount of satisfaction. "You broke into my flat without setting off any of my alarms or alerting Section 31 to your presence; you developed a sedative that worked long enough for you to adequately restrain me… as I said, impressive." He gave a cold smile. "But then, I would expect no less from a man with my blood in his veins."

"Yes, in the literal sense as well as the familial," the consulting detective replied as he moved into Khan's line of sight. "You'll forgive me if I don't thank you for that. Especially," he added, his voice hardening and eyes glittering with rage, "since you extracted such a...personal...price from my wife in exchange."

Khan held Sherlock's eyes, a contemptuous half-smile on his lips. Whatever outcome his descendent anticipated from this encounter, whether he knew it or not, he'd already lost. In his considerable experience, an angry, jealous husband - no matter how intelligent - was no match for a man like himself. Especially one who wasn't unwilling to goad his erstwhile captor into making the first of what would undoubtedly be many mistakes.

With that in mind, he spoke, every word a precise phaser blast targeting the other man's emotions. "As for that, I'm sure you noted how much she enjoyed our little encounter. And before you ask, no, she had no idea I was recording our liaison." A microscopic flinch, a bare twitch of the eye; the temper was fraying. Time for another little push... "I presume you found a way to track my...gift...back here? Or were you forced to ask your computer expert to reveal the location of my flat?"

"Deduce it; you're the genetically augmented genius," Holmes snapped as he came to a stop just short of the distance it would take Khan to reach him should he manage to free his arms and lunge forward. His gloved hands were balled into fists and there was just the slightest tremble to them; excellent.

His next words, however, raised him in Khan's estimation just a notch. "As for not alerting Section 31...I haven't decided whether or not to get them involved yet. I'd never heard of them before, which means their own security is impressive. Since such clandestine government agencies are naturally secretive bordering on paranoid, they'd be driven to unearth the source of any anonymously received information regarding your circumvention of their security protocols. And as justifiably confident as I am in my own skills," he added with a curl of his lip, " I've learned never to rush in headlong where such an organization is involved."

"Not even to get revenge against a man you hate?" Khan sneered - not only to further antagonize him, but out of genuine curiosity. "Why not just expose them, reveal their existence to Starfleet or Federation officials, keep them too preoccupied to come after you?" He leaned back in a more relaxed pose as he brought out another weapon in his personal arsenal against his descendent. "After all, they're the ones responsible for you being the last surviving member of the Holmes family."

A hiss of indrawn breath was his only response - until the other man reached under his long, dark coat and pulled out a highly illegal Starfleet-issue phaser.

Set to kill.

**oOo**

Molly studied the unremarkable door set in the front of the unremarkable building that housed Khan's flat. It looked exactly the same as it had the last time she'd come here: a black-painted door to the side of an empty storefront, set back from the pavement just enough for one or two people to stand huddled together under the jutting roof of the first story while pressing the intercom to announce their presence. Nothing different to any of the other buildings on the same quiet stretch of London road.

The discreet little scanner she held in one hand, however, told a different story. The security devices were far beyond state-of-the-art, miles above what even the most sophisticated civilian devices available to the general public, clearly Starfleet in origin. She knew they were being used by not only Section 31, but by Khan himself, unknown to that shadow organization.

She also knew that her husband was inside that building right now, confronting Khan; that he'd somehow managed to bypass the security and keep the Section in the dark as to his presence. If he hadn't, the street would have been blocked off due to some trumped-up emergency, the other residents evacuated, and Khan and Sherlock swept into custody with no one the wiser.

If she attempted to breach that security without Khan's assistance, to enter the building relying solely on her own meager skills and Wiggins' tech, she might cause the very thing she wanted to avoid: catching the Section's attention.

However, if she continued to hesitate, there was every chance that the man she loved might end up very, very dead at the hands of the man she'd unwillingly taken as her lover. And since she'd only become Khan's lover in the first place to prevent Sherlock's death, she knew there was really no choice.

Taking a deep breath, heart pounding in her chest, she entered the code that Wiggins swore would keep her off any Section monitors, then moved quickly across the street.

For good or ill, her course was set.

**oOo**

The scene that confronted her as she pushed open the door to Khan's flat was one out of her worst nightmares: Sherlock, holding an illegal weapon in his hand, pointed steadily at the head of the prisoner shackled to the chair in front of him. It was by far the most benign of the possible scenarios that had plagued her during her journey back to London, but still enough to chill her entire body as she realized just how fine a line it was between her arrival in the nick of time - and five seconds too late. "Sherlock," she said quietly, knowing that both men had undoubtedly already marked her entrance. She allowed the door to close behind her, took one careful step forward. "Please. Don't."

For a pair of breaths - a dozen heartbeats - they faced one another; Molly let out a long, shaky breath when Sherlock slowly dropped his arm to his side. "Thank you," she said, relieved that she hadn't been forced to watch her husband commit a murder because of something she'd done.

"He coerced you into having sex with him to save my life," Sherlock said in a low voice. Molly waited, knowing he wasn't one to state the obvious even as enraged as she knew he currently was. "Which, judging by the recording he so obligingly sent me, you _enjoyed_." He practically spat the last word out, and she couldn't help flinching at the sheer venom in her husband's voice. She watched apprehensively as he visibly calmed himself. "I just have one question for you: did you come here to save me...or _him_?"

"I came here," Molly said, her voice shaking with emotion, "to stop you from making a mistake that might cost you your freedom - or your life. The life I worked so hard to save." She held up a hand to forestall any sneering comment he might make about _working hard_. "I won't lie to you, tell you I was faking it or anything so obvious." Her voice was shaking, and she paused to try and calm herself, closing her eyes briefly before speaking again. "Yes, I enjoyed it. Am I ashamed of myself? Disgusted that I could take pleasure from that encounter? Of course I am."

She hoped that he was deducing her and not too enraged to really _hear _her. "I can't change what I did - but I will never regret that by doing so, I saved the life of the man I love. And if you can't forgive me, fine, but for God's sake don't throw that life away by going after revenge, Sherlock, or everything I did will have been for nothing."

Her voice nearly broke on the last word, and she held his unblinking gaze for a long, long moment. Khan, thankfully, kept his mouth shut, although she could see the contemptuous half-smile on his lips from the corner of her eye.

When Sherlock finally spoke his voice was clipped, angry, but no longer in danger of losing control, as he so clearly had been when she first arrived. "Very well." He stepped away from Khan's bound form, still holding the illegal weapon by his side. "We'll leave him here to work himself free, as he's already begun to do so."

Molly swung her head around to see what Sherlock meant, and could see that Khan had been flexing his arms, straining against the metal bands around his wrists. She could also see the signs of stress showing in the metal, and her eyes widened at the sight. "Please, Sherlock, let's just leave him here, let him be Section 31's problem. Can't we just go home before he does any more damage?" She swallowed. Hard. "I, I mean...it's not just his fault, I know that I...hurt you and I'm so sorry, so very sorry…"

Khan let out a derisive chuckle. "Oh so touching," he sneered. "The wronged husband, the repentant wife. Some things never change, no matter how many centuries pass. Well, Sherlock? Will you take her back, spend the rest of your married life nobly forgiving her? Or will you do her the kindness of breaking things off with her permanently?"

"Neither," Sherlock snapped, raising the phaser up so that it pointed at Khan's chest again. "How Molly and I deal with this going forward is our business and no one else's. I came here to warn you to stay out of our lives from now on, to forget you ever met us - as we will do our best to forget you. I don't know why you felt the need to play your sick games with us, but as of right now...it's over. You got what you wanted, you kept your word and gave Molly what she asked for, and neither of us ever want to see you ever again."

He reached out with his free hand; understanding instantly what he wanted, Molly walked over to stand by his side, intertwining her fingers through his. Showing Khan solidarity, a commitment she belatedly understood that he'd intended to undermine from the moment he made his demands of her.

Sherlock locked gazes with Khan, who still wore that contemptuous half-smile, as if all of this was just some game he was playing. "I mean it. I don't ever expect to see or hear from you again. Make no contact with either Molly or myself or anyone connected with us, or I swear I will end you."

"This has all been rather diverting, but I do have more important things to attend to," Khan replied coolly. "Nothing to do with either of you. So by all means, take your delectable little wife home with you. Forgive her, take her back into your bed - but just remember how much she enjoyed herself when she was with _me_."

Molly flinched at the calculated cruelty in his words, wondering how she could possibly have wanted anything to do with him, no matter how closely he resembled her husband. Sherlock could be cold, he could be merciless, but not like this. "Please, Sherlock," she whispered. "Please, let's just go now. Please."

She didn't take a proper breath until the two of them were outside on the street again. She made to pull her hand away from Sherlock's, since Khan was no longer there to see them, but he tightened his grip and shook his head. "I meant what I said to him, Molly. I have no intention of spending the rest of our lives 'nobly forgiving' you, nor do I intend to let this end our marriage. He looked at her squarely. "I've held myself above other men, denying that I'm anything like them, and this has proven to me just how wrong I was about myself. I need time to process that, Molly, time to come to terms with everything, and I know you do too." He took a deep breath. "Would you consider doing so back home, at Baker Street? So we can work this out together?"

She smiled, and nodded, relieved tears pooling in her eyes. "Yes, Sherlock. Of course. Anything for you."

**oOo**

Khan watched as Molly and Sherlock walked away, hand in hand. If there was a touch of envy in his gaze, he refused to acknowledge it. What had started off as simply a diversion, a way to entertain himself, had become a game, an experiment in manipulation. His skills, he was pleased to see, hadn't become rusty through disuse. Ever since awakening in this new century he'd been at the mercy of Admiral Marcus, forced to do his bidding with the promise of being reunited with his crew, his family, dangled over his head as bait.

No more. He would find out where Marcus was holding them; he would free them, and then they would take the starship Khan had designed and Marcus had had built in a top-secret facility orbiting Jupiter, and they would leave this planet far, far behind.

Everything would go exactly as he wanted it to; he would tolerate nothing less.


	8. Epilogue: Six Months Later

**Epilogue: Six Months Later**

It hadn't been easy, finding their way back to one another, but neither Molly nor Sherlock were the type to back down from a challenge. And oh what a challenge it had been; harsh words had been exchanged, accusations and counter-accusations flung down, but in the end, they'd each been able to acknowledge the missteps that had led them to the brink of ruination - and to find forgiveness with one another.

Molly smiled to herself as she felt Sherlock slip back into bed, carefully tucking himself around her and holding her close. "You weren't supposed to wake up," he murmured, pressing a soft kiss against the back of her neck. "You were supposed to keep sleeping and not even know I'd been gone, so you could recover from our trip here."

"Hard to miss the comm chime, even if you did have it muted," she replied with a sleepy stretch. Rolling onto her back, she gazed over at him. "Does this means you'll be rushing back to Earth for a case?" She couldn't help the pang of sadness in her voice as she asked the question; they'd only just arrived on Vulcan and were supposed to stay a week.

He shook his head. "Solved it over the comm," he replied with that cocky grin she knew and loved - when she wasn't itching to slap it off his face, of course. "Barely worth getting out of bed for, but I owed Lestrade a favor. At least that's out of the way now." His smile this time was a slow uncurling of the lips, heavy with promise. "So we can get back to our sex holiday without further interruptions."

She giggled, then giggled even harder at the mock-scowl he graced her with. "Sorry, but honestly, Sherlock - sex holiday? Why can't you just call it a second honeymoon like anyone else?"

"Because there is neither honey nor a moon involved," he pointed out - logically, of course. "Vulcan has neither bees nor moons and I am really not interested in talking about it anymore." He pulled her close and kissed her, tugging her body so that she sprawled over his naked form.

"Well, if you're sure you don't need more sleep…"

"Sleep is boring," he said dismissively as he cupped her breasts. "I've had more than enough sleep, but not nearly enough this." He moved his hands and replaced them with his mouth, suckling and teasing her while she moaned and dug her fingers into the pillow above his head.

They'd made love only once since Molly had saved his life and temporarily lost his trust in her, and that had been an urgent, angry session against the door to their flat. The half-Betazoid marriage counselor they'd been seeing had recommended taking it slowly, not trying to force their former intimacy back into existence but rather, allowing it to blossom naturally over time. Their late arrival after their commercial shuttle flight had developed engine difficulties had left them both far too knackered to do more than strip down and fall into bed after checking into the Vulcan version of a hotel...but now it was morning and they'd gotten enough sleep and were both naked and Sherlock was kissing her and ohhh, bliss, moving down her body with a definite destination in mind.

As soon as she felt his lips and tongue on her sex Molly shuddered and gave a soundless cry of pleasure; it had been far, far too long since he'd pleasured her this way, and her orgasm was embarrassingly quick in coming. Sherlock didn't seem to mind, judging by the smug grin he gave her before diving back down again, barely giving her time to recover.

After he'd turned her into a boneless, moaning mess with his mouth, he hiked himself onto his knees so that he knelt over her, lips and tongue on her breasts while his clever, talented fingers pressed deep inside her. She reached between his legs and grasped his erection, sliding her hands up and down until he groaned and nipped at her, then blindly moved his head up to trade a series of sloppy, urgent kisses with her. She released him with one hand, pressing against his back until he lowered himself over her; as soon as he pulled his fingers free, she guided him inside her, holding tightly to him with her legs and arms as he began moving against her.

One of the things that had kept them from making love had been their mutual worries about Khan: would his spectre rise between them as it had during their first time, when Sherlock had still be furious and deliberately fucked her in a similar position? Was he still worried (not that he'd even come close to admitting that, ever) that she might be comparing the two of them?

As they moved together Sherlock kissed her, sliding his lips over to her ear and nipping sharply on the lobe. "Stop thinking so loudly," he growled. "I'm not going to ever let that bastard come between us again, physically or emotionally, and neither should you." He gave a hard thrust of his hips, leaving Molly gasping with desire. "Are you thinking about him? Are you making comparisons?"

He didn't sound worried; far from it, he asked the questions with a certain arrogance, and the glint in his eyes told her that he already knew the answer before she even opened her mouth.

"No," she said anyway, confirming it for both of them. "Never."

And with that response they gave themselves over entirely to their mutual passion, soon crying out their mutual completion. As they lay together afterwards, tangled in one another's arms, Molly was more than contented. "I love you," she said as Sherlock dropped soft kisses on her forehead.

"Mm, yes, me too, I love you too," he replied sleepily, cuddling her closer so that the top of her head rested beneath his chin. His breathing started to even out, and Molly tugged the covers up a bit higher, closing her eyes with a contented sigh.

Their love had been tested, but now they knew they could survive anything life threw at them, and come out all the stronger for it. Khan and the actions he'd forced her into were finally relegated to the past, where they belonged, never to be referred to again.

* * *

_A/N: So we reach the end. I hope everyone enjoyed the ride and the ending. Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing!_


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